The Miss India parade begins in Hyderabad

Amid a lot of excitement, former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen stepped off the elevator and into the buzzing crowd of flashing cameras. Taking the 20 finalists of the 'I Am She' Miss Universe India pageant out for a walk, Sen paid a visit to a jewellery store in the city, which is also one of the co-sponsors of the pageant, in the city Wednesday.

Asked if the scramble amidst the media to get a picture of her with the contestants will leave the girls overwhelmed, she replied, “I hope they get overwhelmed but not too much either. This is an exercise to shake things up a bit for the contestants, get them to interact with the media and taste what it’s like.”

Coming to Hyderabad for the first time and in fact, coming out of Mumbai for the first time, Sen explains the idea behind the shift. “We were looking to get the competition out of Mumbai where the media is on a completely different level and a lot more crazy. So we were looking at places in and outside India and that’s when Leonia came up. It has a 6000-capacity in a luxurious resort and it seemed perfect. Not to mention that it was in Hyderabad, the city where I was born and have a part of my family still,” she said.

Skipping between topics, she also spoke about her career. “It’s been fantastic. I think I’ve had a very full experience – I am an actress, an entrepreneur, a mother, and now this. In a way I’ve been lucky too, because I’ve never been part of a rat race, it never mattered to me. There were only two times that ‘first place’ as such had been, and both times I won - Miss India and Miss Universe. So, yes definitely been lucky,” she mused.

Sporting a tattoo of her daughters’ names on her right forearm, she admitted her ultimate joy had been from them. “On days when things aren’t going great and I’m down in the dumps, I wonder what to do and I see the tattoo, it reminds me of the wonderful things I have in life - Renee and Alishah,” she confessed.

The ‘I Am She’ Miss Indian Universe finals are set to take place on September 21 at the Leonia Resorts in the city.